How Did You End Up Here?

A co-worker at work discovered I’d shot a movie with Steven Seagal.

Co-worker: Wait, you shot a movie with Steven Seagal? Like THE Steven Seagal?

Me: Yep.

Co-worker: What’s it called?

Me: “Clementine”

Co-worker: Never heard of it (though thoroughly impressed). So…

Me: It was never suppose to be released in America.

Co-worker: Ah. (I can tell he’s just itching to hit a Google search). So…what happened?

Me: Whaddya’ mean?

Co-worker: How the fuck did you end up here?

That is THE universal question isn’t it? How the fuck we ended up where we ended up. My initial response was “How the fuck did you end up where you are?” (he’s going to Canada to assist dailies on a Lasse Hallstrom movie, I think). But I thought better. What he was really asking was…how did you fuck up such an opportunity as to end up in the trenches with the rest of us?

Great question.

The answer: I fucked up. At mid-20’s you have NO idea what opportunities are. Arrogance, specifically, 20 year old arrogance is that if it happened once, it happens all the time. I remember hearing something similar to actors who’ve fell hard. They get an amazing role and think it’s like that all the time. No one ever believes a well can run dry. Or that you get so drunk you fall into said well. And drown.

I feel fortunate that I am still alive to wonder what could’ve been had I been more mature and savvy about the business. As it were, it was enough to stick it in the face of a Steadicam operator who gave me shit on another production because I was an assistant on stupid kid’s t.v. show. This operator was also a crane operator. Union guy. I’d ask him questions, he’d blow me off. That is until the day he showed up on “Clementine” renting out his Steadicam gear to my Steadicam operator. The look on his face was priceless when I told him I was the director of photography on the  movie. How exactly did I get from being his assistant to the 2^nd in command to a Seagal movie was beyond him. And that’s the bizarre insanity of our business. Which is also why you should be nice.

Well, actually, I suppose the joke would be on me, since now I have a co-worker wondering why I’ve fallen so far off the map. And how I could’ve squandered my supposed talent. You don’t appreciate things you perceive as luck.